Politics as usual

March 02, 2013

Schwartz for governor?

U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Montgomery County, provided significant hints last week that she's readying to take on Gov. Tom Corbett in 2014.

First, she stepped down as the national fundraiser for the congressional Democrats' campaign arm, a job that would have been too time consuming — if not impossible — to do while running for statewide office.

Then, she told the Associated Press that she was filing paperwork to form a state political action committee to be used in a run for governor.

She wasted no time attacking her possible future opponent, using New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's decision to accept the federal government's expanded Medicaid to pressure Corbett to do the same.

When the Christie news broke, Schwartz quickly assembled a conference call with other state Democrats to pounce on Corbett's decision to pass on the additional federal benefits.

In the call that sounds like a future campaign attack line, she said she was merely calling on Corbett "to do the smart thing."

Oh, and to top it off? On Saturday, she won a straw poll at the Pennsylvania Progressive Summit, topping state Treasurer Rob McCord and former Rep. Joe Sestak.

— Colby Itkowitz

PSU or Sandusky U?

It wasn't hard to guess what Robert Jennings, Mark Nordenberg and Neil Theobald were thinking Thursday as the state Senate Appropriations Committee met.

Glad I'm not that guy.

Jennings is president of Lincoln University, Nordenberg is chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh and Theobald is president of Temple University.

That guy was Rodney Erickson, president of Penn State University.

The universities' top leaders were before the committee to talk about state funding for their institutions and apparently whatever else was on the senators' minds, including the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal.

Erickson, who stepped into the presidency after former President Graham Spanier was forced out, had to answer questions about the university's commission report that detailed Sandusky's sex crimes on children. The report was done by former FBI Director Louis Freeh and it found late football coach Joe Paterno and other university leaders concealed child sex-abuse allegations against Sandusky to avoid bad publicity.

Sen. John Yudichak, D-Carbon, asked how much the report cost.

About $6.5 million and it came from the university's rainy day fund, Erickson said.

But the Freeh Report was found to be flawed by another study, Yudichak said. He didn't mention the other report was commissioned by Paterno's widow.

Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre, said he didn't want to Monday morning quarterback Erickson. Corman proceeded to ask why he and the university released the Freeh Report immediately to the public before spending time reviewing it for accuracy since it subsequently was used by the NCAA as the basis for their $60 million fine and other sanctions against the university.

Superior Court Judge Jack A. Panella said last week he has no intention of running again for state Supreme Court. The former Northampton County judge ran for an open seat on the high court in 2009, but lost to Republican Joan Orie Melvin.

Orie Melvin's conviction last month on charges that she used her sister Jane Orie's state Senate staff and her own judicial staff to run her campaign will create a vacancy on the Supreme Court to be filled in the 2015 election. Panella, who brought the Superior Court's traveling road show to Northampton Community College on Tuesday, declined to discuss the reasons for his decision.

Orie Melvin and Panella squared off in 2009 in one of the most expensive judicial elections in Pennsylvania history. Orie Melvin faces removal from the bench when she is sentenced May 7 in Allegheny County Court. Alternatively, the state disciplinary court for judges could act to remove her or the General Assembly could begin impeachment proceedings.

— Peter Hall

Dent votes with Dems on women's violence bill

Lehigh Valley Congressman Charlie Dent voted "no" on his party's-scaled back version of the Violence Against Women Act. He then voted "yes" on a Senate-passed bill that includes expanded protections for gays and Native Americans.

The Senate bill to reauthorize domestic violence programs won support of all House Democrats and just over a third of Republicans and is on its way to the president's desk to become law.

The version Dent supported protects gay, lesbian and transgender victims of domestic violence. It also allows American Indians to try non-American Indian men who commit violence against Indian women on native land in tribal courts.

The Republican-led House took up its narrower version first and agreed that if it were defeated (it was) to bring up the Senate bill. If the GOP bill had passed, both chambers would have had to meet in a conference to negotiate a compromise.

Dent said his support for the Senate bill was to move the legislation along more quickly.

"Further delaying this crucial legislation does this Congress no credit and leaves state and local service providers facing uncertainty about their ability to continue protecting some of the most vulnerable members of our society," Dent said in a speech on the House floor.

— Colby Itkowitz

Somebody quote me

"We spend money for a cowboy poetry festival and a million dollars for taste testing foods to be served on Mars."